Read Online Cliffhanger (The Belinda & Bennett Mysteries, Book One) by Amy Saunders - Free Book Online Page B

"What happened to you?"
    Belinda flipped
open the visor mirror and shrieked. "I just stood there talking to a man
looking like this!"
    "What kind
of man?"
    Belinda pursed
her lips.
    "Well, your
level of panic should coincide with the person who saw you. Now, if it was
someone who's friends with your father, do you really care that much how you
looked? No, of course not. So what kind of man are we talking about?"
    Belinda wanted to
cry. "The kind that we trick into coming to your house."
    It took Victoria a second, but then she lit up. "I'm sure he didn't notice your appearance."
She did a three-point turn and pulled out to the main road.
    Belinda grimaced.
"I'm positive it was the total opposite. He pulled a leaf from my hair and
then asked if I'd been in the woods."
    "What did
you do anyway?"
    Belinda explained
her foray through the perimeter bushes and then how Bennett was walking toward
her. For the moment, she decided to keep the photos to herself.
    "So what did
you tell him you were doing?"
    "I'm not
sure I ever got around to it. I sort of unintentionally turned the conversation
on him." Belinda tossed leaves out the window as they drove.
    "I guess you
remembered the whistle?"
    "Summer
before senior year. Saved by the whistle as my father showed up while Matt
Reardon mouth attacked me on our non-date though I was supposed to be at the
movies with you."
    "Saved you
on two accounts."
    "Matt
Reardon. Can you believe I spent an entire school year daydreaming about him?
Then I finally get close to all my dreams coming true, and all I wanted to do
the entire night was kill him. Came this close to pushing him overboard when he
tried to kiss me."
    "Hormones,
darling. We all had them."
    "At least
your infatuations made sense. Every boy I liked in high school turned out to be
a plague upon mankind."
    "It's a good
thing you left them all behind. Now you're free for Hot Security Man."
    Belinda shifted
her eyes sideways.
    "Just
sayin', I don't think he's a plague upon mankind."
    "Not
yet."
    "You're
older now. You can spot the plagues before you get emotionally invested." Victoria winked, detouring downhill toward downtown on the divided four lane road.
    As she pushed
down on the brakes nearing a red light, Victoria glanced in her rearview mirror
to see a car barreling toward them.

 
     
     
     
    Chapter 8
     
     
    Bennett watched
in horror as the car that had just cut in front of him bashed into the black
Fiat, sending it careening through the intersection and straight for the corner
of a shop. Fear and panic replaced his idle wondering what Belinda had done
inside that house and why. He ran toward the smashed Fiat, grateful he'd
followed them from the Ocean Walk.
    He yelled at the
dazed shop owner to call for help, swinging Belinda's door open. "Can
either of you hear me?" he said. He thought Belinda moaned and her friend
didn't make a peep. He couldn't help them and just stood there in frustration,
waiting for the paramedics.
    Belinda's eyes
flickered as Bennett finally heard sirens. Fortunately, one of the police
stations was not far away. Belinda and Victoria started to come to as the help
arrived and Bennett was forced out of the picture as the police moved in and
the paramedics braced up the two women and helped them into the ambulances.
Belinda was in good hands and he made sure that they knew where to get in touch
with Kyle before they whisked them away to the hospital.
    Bennett glanced
around as they drove off, catching sight of a camera under the overhang of the
shop's roof. His eyes widened and he scrambled to get to the owner, whom he
knew. The poor guy just stood in disbelief where the nose of the Fiat stabbed through
the side of his shop.
    "Is that
camera working?" Bennett said, his arm stretched up at the device.
    "Y–yes."
The gray-haired man blinked like he answered before he truly understood the
question. "Oh...oh!" He did a three-sixty in place and waved Bennett
into the flower shop and toward the back where the